Clark Freshman, Professor of Law

Professor Clark Freshman was a professor of law at the University of Miami from 1995 until 2007 before joining the UC Hastings faculty in 2007. He received his B.A. from Harvard, where his senior thesis facilitated a pardon in the infamous Leo Frank case, an M.A. from University College, Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. He clerked for Judge William Norris of the Ninth Circuit and practiced appellate and entertainment dispute resolution with Manatt Phelps in Los Angeles for several years. He is also a mediator, negotiation trainer, and expert witness on arbitration. He has been an invited speaker on negotiation at many law schools, including Harvard, Yale, and UCLA. His work has appeared in law reviews at Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, and elsewhere.

Professor Freshman's scholarship and teaching focuses primarily on dispute resolution, including law and psychology, the effect of emotion on dispute resolution, lie detection, and emotional skills. In collaboration with Paul Ekman, the scientific advisor to Fox's Lie to Me, Professor Freshman trains lawyers and negotiators in lie detection and emotional skills worldwide. Professor Freshman also works with the Center for Contemplative Mind to promote meditation and other contemplative practices among lawyers and law students. His scholarship addresses the relationship between different forms of discrimination in law and social science, including both the role of discrimination in negotiation, proof of discrimination, and ways to prevent negotiation and promote acceptance.

In his spare time, Professor Freshman enjoys all kinds of yoga, weightlifting, meditation, in-line skating, travel, movies and any opportunity to visit the beach or other water with and without his Tibetan terrier, Tara.

Expertise: Dispute Resolution (Mediation, Negotiation, and Arbitration), Civil Procedure, Law and Psychology, Law and Society, and Lie Detection

UC Hastings offers you the following unique opportunities... the best dispute resolution program for law students in any major city: small classes of 16 or fewer for most, basic courses with diverse teachers, opportunities to mediate real cases, and cutting-edge social science research

What I hope you get from a legal education at UC Hastingsis... an understanding of how to make the pie bigger and get the best share for yourself based both on legal rules, hard social science on what works in negotiation, and the chance for effective practice and feedback in small negotiation classes.

My favorite part about teaching you is... helping us learn from each other, such as what types of communication provoke your anger and which help you communicate.

Clark Freshman

University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco is redefining legal education through our experiential, interdisciplinary, and international approach to the law. We integrate rigorous academics with hands-on practice, preparing our graduates to tackle the legal challenges—and leverage the opportunities—of the 21st century.